


In Our Bedroom After the War

by orphan_account



Category: Oxenfree
Genre: Continuing Loops, Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Illness, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Smoking, Swearing, basically everything, descriptions of drowning, eating problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 01:33:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12716985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: (If there's no one there, then there's no one there- but at least the war is over.)In a world that will never die, Alex finds herself still caring.





	In Our Bedroom After the War

Alex couldn't stop shaking.

This happened every loop, and every time it got her. The Camena High loudspeaker announcements had always been a staticky mess, barely audible.  But every loop- ( _sixty-seven times she'd reached this point,_ she realized in the back of her head)- every loop it sent her shaking in her seat, paralyzed with a tongue of stone. Every time, the teacher would crouch beside her, shaking her rapidly and asking her questions she couldn't hear.

She was drowning.

( _named after the Hawaiian god of the sea, the U.S.S. Kanaloa-_ )

“Alex,” said a voice she could hear, finally, through the ocean waves crashing in her ears. Blindly, she reached out, latching onto the familiar fabric of Jonas’ jacket. The chair beneath her tilted violently forward as she fell into his arms, hot tears streaming angry trails down her cheeks.

It was the same rhythm, every timeline. The chair would clatter beneath her as she dragged him down to the ground, sobbing. The teacher would ask more questions that neither of them knew the answer to. She would breathe rapidly into the crook of his neck. He would whisper little assurances under his breath, holding her just as tightly as she held him.

Finally, the shaking subsided. Her tongue no longer felt like weighted lead. The tears stopped coming, as always, and as always, she looked up to see a crowd of curious students looking for the juicy scoop. The rumors were just a little different every time- not by much, but enough to be interesting. The arms fell away from around her.

It hurt every time, to feel him peel away. But it always happened.

 

\--

 

Love was sobbing in the nurse’s office while someone rubbed gentle circles in your back. Sometimes it was Ren. Sometimes it was Jonas. Sometimes it was Nona. Sometimes she was the one rubbing their backs. Sometimes her fingers formed soft triangles on their skin instead of circles, a searing thought in the back of her mind.

( _bob tail. shave tail. sleepy time-_ )

Love was hot chocolate in the middle of the night, soft words and cigarette smoke as they sat on the porch at 2 A.M. Things made sense, there in the dark, as she clutched hands with whoever had come over that night. Everyone who'd been on Edwards Island knew where the hot chocolate was in her cabinet, every timeline. They would wander over from a nightmare and find Alex, sat there in the kitchen waiting for them like she knew, which she did; these visits were the same every timeline. Same person, same time. October 7th, 10:23 P.M. Ren would visit about a nightmare of drowning. October 15th, 1:45 A.M. Nona would sheepishly knock on her door, wringing her hands, saying Ren had told her she could help with her bad dreams. This one would happen every timeline too; whether they'd gotten together or not, Ren would give the same advice to her about hot chocolate.

And it would go on. Her sobbing into Jonas’ shoulder, her and Clarissa whisper yelling insults at each other until they were too tired to speak anymore and they sat in near-amicable silence. Nona holding her hand under the cover of darkness, more for grounding than anything, but every time it made Alex’s face turn into a bright cherry. She would gently squeeze back in the dark. Ren, rapidly spilling his guts about his feelings for Nona, or firing off memories of possession fast enough for her to barely be able to understand his words.

( _eighty nine officers, twelve passengers-_ )

Love was forcing applesauce or peach fruit cups into her when she hadn't eaten in two days, the static in her head too loud for her to speak or move the tongue from the roof of her mouth. Love was holding her hand when the world was falling apart around her.

Love was Jonas’ little smile. Love was Nona swinging her legs delicately in a pirouette, slicing through the air. Love was Ren’s boisterous laugh at a bad joke. Love was a single cigarette handed over with clacking red nails, a quiet thanks, a lighter with the name “Clarissa” engraved on it, a gift for her and Michael’s anniversary.

Love was dreaming of Michael in his bedroom, telling her she would be okay.

Love was laughing at “Major  _Dick Harden_ ,” love was yelling about a scavenger hunt into the unforgiving night for the fiftieth loop around, love was the dial of a radio.

 

\--

 

She had only brought Michael back once.

She'd wondered, of course. God had she wondered. But she'd only done it once.

The first time she'd said an inside joke to Jonas he had understood every loop around and he'd looked at her with confusion and asked her what she meant, bile rose in her throat. It tasted sour and heavy and thick in her mouth.

All her bottled up grief, all her coping, all of her and Clarissa’s interactions for the past year or more- it was just gone. Clarissa was too nice, smiling as she smoked, laughing at her bad puns, asking her if she was okay when she stared too long.

Jonas didn't know her.

Jonas didn't know her. He didn't remember her name very well. He didn't understand when she was overly indignant when someone asked if she had feelings for him, or when she stumbled over the explanation of “he's my friend,” nearly starting to say “he's my stepbrother.” He didn't know her in even the ways he'd known her in the timelines where she'd broke their relationship before resetting the pieces back into place.

Michael was like a ghost to her. He was a dead man walking. Sure he breathed, and he spoke, and he smiled. But nobody else in this loop knew what she remembered- lifeless eyes, water spewing from his anxious and blue lips as she performed the mediocre CPR she'd learned in the boy scouts as a kid before she'd transitioned. They did not know the funeral, or the schooldays skipped fully to go sit on the pier and angrily throw rocks into the unfeeling ocean.

The resetting of the timeline had her almost crying with relief. It also had her vomiting over the side of the railing.

The dead, she decided, were not to be wrenched from their graves.

 

\--

 

She kissed Nona.

_Rewind._

She apologized to Clarissa.

_Rewind._

She told Jonas she hated him.

_Rewind._

She didn't speak once.

_Rewind._

She went off to college with Nona and Clarissa, making mugs of coffee: one black, one filled with cream.

_Rewind._

She let Clarissa go.

_Rewind._

She grew up to live in a spacious apartment with Jonas. They had open windows and a cat. Ren visited.

_Rewind._

She told Jonas everything while they were still on the ferry. He didn't believe her until it all happened. She thought it was finally over.

_Rewind._

She killed herself.

_Rewind._

She launched herself off Harden Tower.

_Rewind._

She refused to leave the ferry.

_Rewind._

She screamed at the ghosts to just end it already.

_Rewind._

She told the Michael in her flashbacks that she missed him very much.

_Rewind._


End file.
